How to Clean Your Windows Computer: The Ultimate Checklist

How to Clean Your Windows Computer: The Ultimate Checklist

Cleaning up Windows can yield vast performance improvements. Here's the ultimate checklist for cleaning your Windows computer.
computers slow down. Of course, aging hardware plays a part, but for most people, a more common cause is poor operating system maintenance. It's time to clean your computer.

A clean install of Windows is the nuclear option. Getting rid of all the accumulated junk and starting afresh instantly makes your machine run faster and more smoothly.

However, you don't need to take such drastic steps. Spending some time cleaning up Windows can yield almost identical results. Sure, your five-year-old laptop might never be able to play the latest AAA game, but you'll still see vast improvements.

Here's the ultimate checklist for how to clean a Windows computer.

1. Delete Unused Software
2. Run Your Antivirus
3. Disk Clean-Up
4. Defragment Your Hard Drive
5. Delete Old Drivers
6. Refresh Your Startup List
7. Clean The AppData Folder
8. Remove Old Program Files
9. Clean The Registry
10. Clean All The Caches

we've introduced you to some crucial steps if you want to give your operating system a spring clean. By processing all 10, you're guaranteed to see a performance boost.

Of course, there are other ways to improve your computer's speed---for example, you could upgrade the hardware---but doing so is often expensive and complicated for beginners. The tradeoff isn't always worth it.